Confessions of a Wicked Witch
by RedandBlack24601
Summary: Everybody knows the story of Rapunzel. But nobody knows the story of the Wicked Witch. Maybe, just maybe, she's not as evil as the world thinks she is.


**I wrote this story for a Writer's Club I do at school, and it got some really good comments. I hope you enjoy. :) If you like it, please review. If you don't...well, sorry about that. **

Let me tell you something. I wasn't always a hermit. I had a life; I sold 'magic' hair care products that made hair grow. I suppose my biggest mistake in life was acquiring an interest in botany. I had such a brilliant idea. I wanted to grow magical plants and sell them to the world. I got a great piece of real-estate too, nice and cheap. There were nice high walls that I grew vines up. The neighbours were friendly; they left me to my own devices. Within a year I had a garden overflowing with plants, a cosy cottage that I lived in, and a giant tower in the northeast corner that I had not found a use for yet. I suppose my life would still be happening in relatively the same way, had it not been for a couple called the Cobbs. They were a strange couple; there was no doubt about that. They were very fond of peculiar names, and it was the wife who wore the pants in that household.

I was out tending to my wolfsbane plants under the light of the full moon, when I heard a peculiar scratching sound. I went over to investigate, and saw Archibald Cobbs, a weedy, balding man with a face like a rat skulking around in my garden. When he saw me, he froze.

"You're…you're the witch" he stammered. Well, I didn't take too kindly to that and with good reason too. Sure, I wasn't very pretty, but I think calling me a witch was taking it a bit too far. Sure, I practised magic, and had a rather unsightly wart on the end of my nose, but I wasn't evil or anything like that. I had never been to jail, and I donated regularly to the R.S.P.C.A. It was then I noticed he had he jacket pockets full to bursting with my newly formulated plant. Rapunzel, it was called. I hadn't perfected it yet. I had tried it out on a trespassing mouse I had found in the kitchen one day, and its hair was a foot long within the week. What was he doing with it?

"What are you doing with my plants?" I screeched at him, my voice slightly hysterical. I got a few babbled words about wife, pregnant and cravings in response.

"I will let you live and you can have the plants, if you give me your first born child!" I cried. That was a mistake. I would have let him go anyway. I just wanted the plants. They were imperfect; a health hazard. I was a little more than shocked when he called my bluff. I probably should've just dismissed it, snatched the plants back and told him I was joking, but I was not one to back down.

"Go then. I will see you when your wife has her child." He nodded and scrambled back over the wall. As soon as he was back over the wall, I realized what I had done. I sank to the ground, and slammed my palm against my forehead.

Two months later, I got a newspaper on my front doorstep, like I did every Sunday morning. I usually got it for the crosswords and the comic strips, but today, something caught my eye.

'**Witch threatens to kidnap couple's baby'** was the headline that glared at me from the front page. I skimmed the article from start to finish. Most of it wasn't true. Archibald Cobbs had ratted on me to his wife, and his wife had told the media. Well, now I was going to have to carry out my end of the bargain. It was mostly rage that fuelled my actions, as I stormed over to the Cobbs house, adoption papers in hand, and demanded that they gave me their baby. They were surprisingly compliant. I only had to threaten the life of their pet cat, and the safety of an uncle to get them to agree.

Being the odd couple that they were, they had named their kid Rapunzel. What kind of parent names their kid a name that most people could barely spell, let alone pronounce? So, we sat down at their kitchen table, and signed all the adoption papers. Then, I took the baby back to my house, and laid her down to sleep in a room that I had haphazardly prepared. To tell the truth, I had never really wanted a baby. I had never fancied getting woken up in the middle of the night by a baby's piercing shrieks. But it was my duty, and when duty called, I rose to the occasion. The only problem was that Mrs Cobbs seemed to have eaten some of that Rapunzel-the plant I mean, not the kid. The kid's hair never stopped growing. When she was three, it was down to the small of her back. When she was eight, it hung down to her toes, and when she was 16, it trailed about a metre behind her. After a while, I just stopped cutting it. Each time I did, it just grew back faster.

For Rapunzel's 17th birthday, I decided to give her a nice surprise. I had spent the better part of that year furnishing the room in the top of the tower for her so that she could have her own space. I gave her a 39 inch plasma TV, a mini fridge and a laptop, but the kid still screamed at me when I left her there. She was never a very grateful child. I only realized that I had forgotten to install stairs the next week. It seems that I am losing my memory in old age. I went down there to install stairs the moment I remembered about them, but when I transported myself up there, I found my little girl kissing away with some young hunk- a prince maybe. Now, I am usually a very docile person. I have never had to go see an anger management therapist, that's for sure, but for some reason, this guy really pushed my buttons. I just hated to see my daughter gallivanting around with the first guy who climbed into her tower. What annoyed me even more though was the fact that as soon as I climbed into the tower, he immediately pointed at me and yelled, "There's a witch!" Now, all the stories say that I went into a tremendous rage and pushed him off the top of the tower, where he was blinded by thorn bushes. That's not strictly true. I backed him against the window, just to teach him not to mess with me. It's not my fault that he got all scared and jumped. I tried to conjure some pillows beneath him, I really did. I'm not the best in stressful situations though, and my pillows came out as thorn bushes. It's a simple mistake. Anyone could make it. Then, there's also that nonsense about how I banished Rapunzel to a desert. I assure you that did not happen. Rapunzel, when she was a girl, had snuck into my office and got her hands on some of my spell books. It seemed she had learnt the spell for instantaneous transportation, for the moment she saw that the prince had fallen out the window, she disappeared. Needless to say, I was heartbroken.

A few days later, a story was printed in a local newspaper, very simply titled **Rapunzel. **It was written by no less than my own daughter. It was all about me. How I had abused her by refusing to let her have her hair cut, how I had cruelly locked her away in a tower without an exit, how I had pushed her lover out of the window and blinded him, and how I had transported her to a cave in the middle of a desert. I was horrified to think that my own daughter thought of me in that way.

So, I wound up a hermit. I lived in the tower, spending my days watching soap operas and eating cheese from the mini fridge. I never did get around to installing those stairs…


End file.
